


What Friends Are For

by carolinaa



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Injury, Season/Series 01, Self-Destructive Behavior, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 12:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14694105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinaa/pseuds/carolinaa
Summary: He should have listened to Stick when he had the chance. Easing out of the friendships he’d inadvertently made would have been worlds easier than this.Or, better yet, he could have avoided ever making friends in the first place.





	What Friends Are For

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this like 18 years ago like. season 1 idk i don't want to do work and find the right episode. read it and weep haha

Matt feels desperation well up in his chest, and he clutches at the arm of the couch, trying to get a grip on something. “Foggy. Foggy?”

He hears Foggy’s footsteps receding, hears the door slam, hears Foggy’s heartbeat echoing through the noise of the city.

Foggy’s gone, and Matt slumps with the realization that it had only been a matter of time.

 

He should have listened to Stick when he had the chance. Easing out of the friendships he’d inadvertently made would have been worlds easier than this.

Or, better yet, he could have avoided ever making friends in the first place.

 

When Matt heals enough to return to work, he keeps his head down as much as possible.

Foggy doesn’t give any cheerful “Good morning!” when Matt arrives, though Matt doesn’t really expect him to.

He hears Karen give a small sigh, though Matt can’t tell whether it’s relief or if it’s frustration. It’s possible she’s just happy not to have to talk to Matt anymore.

Matt retreats to his office, and doesn’t say a word to Foggy all day. For the first time in years, Foggy returns the favor.

 

Not having friends is something that Matt doesn’t adjust to as well as he’d hoped he would. He keeps picking up the phone to call Foggy, considering making Karen coffee, and even wants to call Claire.

Claire left, Matt reminds himself. Foggy hates him. Karen put up with him for Foggy’s sake.

He wonders what else Stick was right about.

Matt throws out his silk sheets the next day.

 

Patrol that evening is worse than expected. Matt feels disconnected from himself, somehow, and keeps slipping up. He keeps getting distracted by mundane sounds instead of focusing on whoever’s trying to stab him.

Limping heavily, Matt tumbles through his bedroom window. He's halfway to calling Claire before he remembers that he’s not supposed to do that anymore.

He can’t see the knife wound he’s stitching up, but he can definitely feel when he makes a mistake.

His new cotton sheets feel like they’re tearing at his skin the whole night, but Matt doesn’t have the strength to get up and sleep on the floor instead.

 

Matt has to practically throw himself out of bed the next morning, thoroughly unrested.

The walk to the office seems too long, and his senses feel dulled. In this moment, Matt unapologetically hates himself for how many mistakes he’s made and how many problems those have caused.

Foggy doesn’t look up when he walks in the door, but Matt is pretty sure that he does after Karen stands up abruptly and exclaims, “Matt! What happened?”

Matt shakes his head, and then takes a deep breath to answer. “I just fell down some stairs,” he lies lamely, and feels one of his ribs slip out of place.

It had felt sort of off all morning, and Matt barely suppresses a wince. Something must show on his face. Karen steps forward a few steps, and Foggy finally gets to his feet.

They’re just being decent people. Matt doesn’t let himself believe anything otherwise. He gasps in pain when he finally starts moving to his desk, but Foggy doesn’t say a word, and eventually goes back to working quietly.

Karen stands there, still, for a moment, and then gives another sigh and returns to her desk.

 

Matt spends another night with the sheets ripping across his skin.

He calls Foggy, but when the answering machine starts, Matt realizes what he’s doing. Immediately, he hangs up and tosses his phone as far away as he can.

 

By the time Matt can get himself up and dressed, it’s seven in the evening, and he doubts that Karen or Foggy will still be at the office.

The building is quiet when Matt reaches steps inside. He's wondering how long he and Foggy can avoid each other before their business starts to suffer, but that's an issue for later. He's already opened the door by the time he focuses enough to realizes he hears a heartbeat. Karen.

He tries to turn around and leave, but Karen’s voice stops him. “Matt? Are you okay?”

Matt’s mind sputters. He’s fine, is what he means to say, but instead what happens is that his eyes fill with tears.

This is wrong, this is weakness. Matt needs to leave. He tightens his hand on his cane in an attempt to get his focus anywhere else.

Karen’s heels click towards him. “Matt, please talk to me. I don’t know what’s happening with you and Foggy, but I need you two to shape up right now."

Matt’s face crumples, and before he knows what’s happening, Karen’s arms are around him and he’s sobbing into her neck. 

“I’m sorry,” Matt whispers over and over, and ignores Karen’s soft “For what?"

 

Matt doesn’t go to work the next day.

 

Or the next.

 

He begins to spend more and more hours out chasing down people who hardly deserve their fates any more than Matt. His accumulating injuries aren’t doing much to make him feel better, but. It’s just what he deserves.

 

This continues in a cycle for about a week. Matt learns how to ignore Foggy and Karen, because he doesn’t need them. Most of his belongings are superfluous as well, and he shoves those into a spare room.

The cycle ends when Matt falls through his bedroom window at three in the morning, slips, and hits his head on the wall, knocking himself out.

 

Matt wakes up to Foggy and Karen screaming at each other.

Karen is incoherent by the time Matt cracks open his eyes. There’s a headache pounding in his brain, and definitely six broken ribs in his chest, and he hasn’t been more afraid of anyone since Stick beat him up the very first time.

“Please,” is all Matt can mumble, and he’s not even sure what he’s asking for, but Karen’s sentence hangs dead in the sudden stillness.

“I told her everything,” Foggy says coldly, and Matt flinches.

“That wasn’t…” Matt tries to speak, but everything just hurts so bad. He hopes that this isn’t real, that he’s just dreaming, but he’s never blind in his dreams.

“You didn’t think you could trust me?” Karen asks.

“Karen,” Matt pleads, “I wanted—“

“ _You_ wanted!” Karen is yelling again, and Matt’s ears can’t take much more of this. “Maybe try considering what someone _else_ wanted!”

“I tried…”

Foggy cuts in, and Matt senses that he’s placed a placating hand on Karen’s arm. “We never wanted you to get hurt, Matt.”

Matt uses one arm to shove himself into a sitting position. His head spins, but he’ll be fine. “Well, _I_ never wanted you two to get _killed_!” The use of his lungs makes him reel with pain, and his voice reflects that, but he plows on. “Karen, Foggy found out by accident. I never wanted you to get involved, please just leave me alone--!”

“Shut up!” Karen snaps, and Matt can smell salt, she’s crying. “Stop making it all about you. You’re not alone in this!"

“I need to be alone in this,” Matt insists, because he can’t endanger anyone else.

“Stop acting like no one cares about you,” Foggy seethes, and the stillness is back. It’s just cars honking outside and Foggy’s heart rate elevated and the drip of Karen’s tears.

Matt finally gives a cautious, “What?”

“He said stop acting like no one cares about you,” Karen says.

There’s no way that Foggy even likes Matt after how many lies have been told. Karen doesn’t like Matt either. No one likes Matt, not even Matt. “What do you mean?” Matt’s voice is trembling.

After another beat of silence, Foggy ventures, “Matt, please say you’re kidding?”

Matt closes his eyes tightly. “I thought—after—I was so awful—“

“You’re my best friend!” Foggy snarls. “Yes, I’m really pissed, but that doesn’t mean I hate you, what the ever-loving fuck—“

Karen is shaking her head, Matt can distantly hear her hair moving back and forth. “Matt, we’re just worried. What made you think otherwise?”

Matt drops his face into his hands and doesn’t answer.

 

The problem is, Karen and Foggy don’t leave after that. Matt isn’t sure what’s going on anymore—he vaguely hears them moving around him, but isn’t sure what they’re up to--and he’s not sure what to do in this situation. He’d been certain that both of them would hate him even more for this.

“Matt, you’re bleeding again,” Foggy comments blankly half an hour later.

Matt’s been focusing on breathing through the splitting pain of his ribs, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed the stitches coming loose. They were some of the ones he’d done himself, and he hadn’t done a great job with them. “There’s a needle and thread in my bathroom.”

“I think he meant that you need a hospital,” Karen interjects, but Matt ignores her, and struggles to his feet.

“Sit down,” Foggy insists, and Karen’s hand is suddenly on Matt’s shoulder, pushing him back down onto the couch.

 

Eventually, Foggy goes to go find the needle and thread, and Karen takes this opportunity to talk to Matt. “How much have you been sleeping?” she interrogates, and Matt shrinks back. This whole morning has been disorienting and strange. There has to be something that they want--why else would they suddenly show up and care?

Matt knows that he’s an awful liar. Despite this, he seriously considers making up a somewhat healthy sleeping schedule, and is halfway to saying “Six hours” before he decides there’s no point in lying anymore. “I haven’t been.”

“Matt…”

“It’s fine. New sheets just take a little getting used to.“

Karen bristles, both upset and confused, so Matt just shuts up.

 

Matt can hardly get himself to sew the wound closed again, but he doesn’t want to force Foggy or Karen to do it for him. He can hear both of their heartbeats speed up, probably because they aren’t used to seeing someone stitch a bullet wound closed, but neither of them step in. Neither of them push him to go to the hospital, however, so he must have gotten through to them somehow.

When he’s done, he’s exhausted, and feels someone take the needle out of his hands.

“Take a nap, Murdock,” Foggy tells him. His voice sounds softer than before, less of a jagged knife. “We’ll order dinner for when you wake up.”

“Okay,” Matt says, and feels like his chest is cracking open, this time in a good way. “Thanks, Foggy.”

“You got it.” Foggy haltingly reaches out and ruffles his hair. “The least I can do.”

Matt doesn’t understand what he means by that, but he’s willing to roll with it.

 

He wakes up in pain and disoriented, but finds that the thermostat is turned on and there’s the smell of food in the air. Karen is laughing and Foggy is talking indistinctly.

He should tell them to leave. He should send them away, along with the food.

“Oh, Sleeping Beauty, nice of you to join us!” Foggy says, and throws himself down onto the couch, making Matt bounce. “You hungry?”

 _Tell him to leave_ , everything in Matt shrieks.

“Fucking starving,” Matt says, and cautiously smiles.


End file.
